172 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



The reduction in the number of rats was a matter of such 

 importance with the inhabitants, that we find a number of 

 ingenious traps were in use for the purpose ; these will be treated 

 of in the Ethnological Report. 



We have mentioned that sport may constitute a second way in 

 which the rat is subject to persecution by the natives, Mariner 1G 

 has given an exhaustive account of the sport of " fanna gooma " 

 or rat shooting, as practised on the island of Hoonga in the 

 Tonga Group, from which it appears that it was an amusement 

 in which only chiefs were permitted to participate, and was 

 undertaken with much ceremony. The rats attracted by bait 

 previously distributed, were shot with unfeathered arrows six 

 feet long, projected from bows of similar length. The game was 

 a party and not an individual affair, the party first killing ten 

 rats was accounted the winner. If, Mariner adds, there be 

 plenty of rats, they generally play three or four games. For a 

 full account of the rules of the game the reader is referred to 

 Mariner's book, which contains much of interest about the 

 Tonga Islands. In Honolulu, as mentioned by Brigham, 3 the 

 bow was exclusively devoted to " killing rats and mice and such 

 small deer." 



The third reason for the native destruction of rats is of greater 

 interest, and may be more fully mentioned, 



In many of the islands of the Pacific the native rat formed an 

 article of food with the inhabitants ; feeding upon fruit or 

 vegetables it would be less objectionable than the omnivorous 

 European rat, and indeed Buller 4 remarks that : "Unlike the 

 common rat, the rat of New Zealand is perfectly free from odour 

 of any kind, probably due to the nature of its food, this consisting 

 almost entirely of fruits and berries." The introduced rats were 

 nowhere eaten : it may be that they were considered to be 

 unpalatable, but it is equally possible that at the time they obtained 

 a footing on the islands, pigs and other edible animals would also 

 be introduced, and the necessity of eating rats removed. These 

 native rats must have been considered good eating, for Gill, 9 

 writing on the Cook Islands, states : " The proverb ' sweet as a 

 rat ' survives in Mangaia to this day, although the adults of this 

 generation have given up the disgusting practice of rat-eating." 



This prolific and entertaining writer 10 has given a valuable 

 historical account of the capture and cooking of rats as practiced 

 in Mangaia : it may be epitomised as follows : 



" In those days ere the cat had been introduced rats were 

 very plentiful. Rat-hunting was the grave employment of bearded 

 men, the flesh being regarded as most delicious. The rat, though 

 but slightly larger than the English mouse, was the only quad- 

 ruped on the island. 



